The United States and Japan will step up their defence cooperation to deal with the threat from nuclear-armed North Korea as tensions in East Asia remain high, officials from the two allies said on Thursday.

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* Reverses the onus of proof by deeming a person guilty of an offence if they travel to certain locations overseas.

* Make it easier to ban organisations and jail their members based on their speech about terrorism.

It also wants to make permanent three regimes from the so-called "war on terror", legislated by parliament to automatically expire from July 2015, to:

* Enable the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation to question and detain any person, including Australian citizens not suspected of terrorism.

* Allow the government to seek control orders to regulate every aspect of a person's life, including house arrest and/or wearing a tracking device.

* Allow preventative detention orders, which permit a person to be held without arrest or charge in secret detention for up to 14 days.

WHAT IS A TERRORIST ACT?

* An act, or a threat to commit an act, that is done with the intention to coerce or influence the public or any government by intimidation to advance a political, religious or ideological cause, and the act causes:

- death, serious harm or endangers a person;

- serious damage to property;

- a serious risk to the health or safety of the public, or;

- seriously interferes with, disrupts or destroys critical infrastructure such as a telecommunications or electricity network.

* It does not cover engaging in advocacy, protest, dissent or industrial action where a person does not have the intention to urge force or violence or cause harm to others